While fans at Pittsburgh Raceway Park have grown accustomed to the International Hot Rod Association’s annual visit to the Steel City, nothing can prepare them for what is in store this year.

Because this year, Pittsburgh Raceway Park will be right in the thick of the International Hot Rod Association’s championship chase as the world’s best drivers in five professional classes travel to Pittsburgh for two days of championship drag racing at the IHRA Nitro Jam Pittsburgh Nationals the weekend of August 1-2.

Featuring one of the biggest nostalgia Nitro Funny Car races on the tour, plus action in Nitro Harley, Nitro Altered, Pro Stock, Jet Dragster and more, fans will be in for a treat when the IHRA returns to Pittsburgh Raceway Park for the biggest IHRA national event ever held at the track.

“Pittsburgh fans have seen IHRA Nitro Jam drag racing before, but they have never seen it quite like this,” said Scott Gardner, President of IHRA Motorsports. “The IHRA is excited to bring the Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series back to Pittsburgh for two days of championship drag racing. This will be one of the biggest events ever at Pittsburgh Raceway Park and we are thrilled to be able to give the fans such an important and exciting race.”

For the first time ever the IHRA will travel to PRP with its complete championship lineup featuring all five classes on the Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series.

Race fans will enjoy over two dozen nitro-powered race machines in Nitro Funny Car, Nitro Harley and Nitro Altered, plus racing in the powerful mountain-motor Pro Stock division, the world’s only Jet Dragster class, a full weekend of sportsman racing and more.

And this year, every lap matters as the stars of the Nitro Jam Drag Racing Series push their machines to the limit in their chase for the 2014 IHRA World Championships. Already this season, IHRA fans have witnessed multiple records in three professional classes shattered by the intense competition.

One of those record-setting classes, AMSOIL Nitro Funny Car, will feature one of its largest fields of the season at Pittsburgh Raceway Park with a dozen nitro-powered Funny Cars trying to make an eight-car field. Multi-time Pittsburgh winner Peter Gallen in the “Poverty Stricken” ’76 Monza will join current points leader Jason Rupert in the Bays and Rupert “Black Plague” ’69 Camaro, “Mr. Explosive” Mark Sanders, local favorite Mike McIntire Jr. in “McAttack,” 2014 national event winner John Hale, Tim Boychuk, Bruce Litton and more.

The event promises to be one of the biggest nostalgia Nitro Funny Car races of the season.

Also making history in Pittsburgh will be the debut of the world’s only Jet Dragster championship program being contested by the four fastest women in drag racing – the Larsen Motorsports jet team. This four-car team is made up of four very talented female competitors with vastly different backgrounds. From a 19-year-old college student, to a female test pilot and an entrepreneur who holds the operation together, the team will compete in 300 mph, side-by-side jet-powered drag racing action.

IHRA’s other nitro divisions will include Nitro Harley and Nitro Altered, two radical and extreme classes that are among the most popular in the world for their death-defying competition.

Wrapping up the professional competition will be the thunderous Mountain Motor Pro Stock division. With powerful 800+ cubic inch powerplants guiding these cars more than 220 mph down the quarter-mile, the intense competition between the Black Diamond Motorsports team, consisting of Kevin Bealko and John DeFlorian, and the Goforth Racing Team, made up of Cary Goforth, Dean Goforth and Todd Hoerner, will resume, alongside former IHRA champion Pete Berner, two-time event winner this season John Konigshofer and more.

In addition to all of the on-track action, the 2014 IHRA Pittsburgh Nationals will feature an all-new and fully interactive Fan Fest pit experience. Fans can tour the pits, meet the drivers and take part in a number of fun family activities including the Larsen Motorsports Jet Technology Center, a hands-on look at the design and technology behind a jet-powered racing team, and the Hollywood Cars of the Stars featuring real cars from famous movies and television shows such as the General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard, the DeLorean from Back to the Future, the Batmobile from the 1960s Batman television series and more.

Tickets to the 2014 IHRA Pittsburgh Nationals can be purchased in advance at www.nitrojam.com or at the gate day of show.

Showtime is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. on Saturday.

For more information on the 2014 IHRA Pittsburgh Nationals, visit www.nitrojam.com or call Pittsburgh Raceway Park at (724) 668-7600.